#personalitydevelopment — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #personalitydevelopment, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: August 5, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: How a year abroad shapes student personality
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-a-year-abroad-shapes-student-personality/
Spending a year studying abroad makes college students more agreeable, more curious, and less anxious, but it does not lead to a complete personality overhaul. By tracking daily behaviors alongside long-term changes, researchers discovered that how students act in the moment helps shape their broader psychological development over time. These findings were published in the Journal of Research in Personality.
Psychologists generally view personality through three different layers. Broad traits, often called the Big Five, represent general dispositions like extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. Narrow traits focus on specific tendencies that fall under those broad categories, such as resilience or curiosity. Finally, personality states are the momentary thoughts, feelings, and behaviors a person experiences on a given day.
Researchers want to understand how life events shift these different layers of personality. Moving to a different country is a major life transition that requires individuals to adapt to new cultures, languages, and social norms. British university programs often mandate a year abroad for language students, providing a natural environment to observe human adaptability in young adults.
Psychology researchers Ian Moore, Akansha Singh, and Nadin Beckmann of Durham University partnered with Damian P. Birney of The University of Sydney to track these developmental changes. They designed a study to see if living abroad altered personality more than staying home. They also structured their project to test whether fleeting, everyday behaviors eventually add up to permanent personality changes.
The team recruited 180 undergraduate students from 12 universities in the United Kingdom. Within this group, 110 students moved abroad for an academic year, while 70 remained at their home institutions. The traveling students went to 32 different countries, with a majority staying in European nations like France, Spain, and Germany. While abroad, the students engaged in various activities, including attending classes, working at internships, or teaching.
The researchers assessed the students’ broad Big Five traits four times over the 14-month study period using standardized questionnaires. They also measured narrow traits, specifically anxiety, curiosity, and resilience, 11 times to capture monthly development. This schedule allowed the team to track steady psychological maturation across the entire academic cycle.
The results did not show a widespread personality transformation among the traveling students. Four of the Big Five traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism) remained relatively stable regardless of where the students lived. The students’ broad personality rankings stayed mostly the same from the beginning of the year to the end, contradicting popular ideas about the completely life-altering nature of travel.
The new environment did appear to influence specific areas of psychological growth. As the year progressed, students living abroad became more agreeable and more curious than their peers at home. The traveling students also reported a steady decrease in overall anxiety, suggesting the international experience helped them manage stress and approach novel situations more effectively over time.
To capture daily personality states, the researchers used a technique called experience sampling. During three separate weeks scattered throughout the academic year, the students received phone prompts four times a day. Each prompt asked them to rate how they were feeling, thinking, and behaving in that exact moment, as well as how they perceived their immediate situation.
This intense measurement schedule allowed the researchers to compare how much personality varies across different timeframes. They calculated the ratio of within-person variability compared to between-person variability. Within-person variability refers to how much a single individual’s behavior fluctuates, while between-person variability describes how much people differ from one another.
The analysis revealed a distinct pattern across the personality hierarchy. Broad traits were the most rigid, showing high between-person variability but very little within-person change. Narrow traits showed a more balanced ratio of flexibility. Daily states fluctuated the most, meaning that students varied more in their own day-to-day behaviors than they differed from the rest of the study participants.
Finally, the team used statistical models to link these daily fluctuations to the students’ long-term trait changes. They analyzed the average of each student’s daily states and compared it to their broad personality scores at the end of the year. The researchers wanted to test the idea that repeated momentary experiences accumulate into permanent psychological shifts.
The data supported this bottom-up theory of personality development. A student’s average daily state consistently predicted their long-term growth. For example, students who repeatedly acted conscientious in their daily tasks saw their overall trait conscientiousness increase by the end of the academic year. The daily repetition of a behavior appeared to solidify it into a lasting trait.
The researchers also checked to see if extreme daily behavioral fluctuations influenced long-term traits, but the results were not statistically significant in most categories. Average daily behavior proved to be a much stronger indicator of future personality than unpredictable behavioral spikes.
The researchers also analyzed situation contingencies, which describe how a person’s behavior changes in response to a specific environmental trigger. They looked at whether reacting to a specific situation predicted long-term personality changes. In most cases, these momentary reactions did not translate into broad trait development.
There was one exception regarding the trait of openness. The researchers found that students generally acted more open when they felt familiar with their physical location. Students who showed a very strong momentary spike in openness when they felt familiar with their surroundings also experienced the greatest long-term growth in broad trait openness over the year.
Because the students chose whether to go abroad or stay home, the two groups differed before the study even began. The students who decided to travel already displayed lower levels of anxiety and neuroticism at the start of the academic year. This indicates a selection effect, meaning that certain types of people are more likely to pursue an international education.
The psychological growth seen in the traveling group might not be entirely caused by the foreign environment. These students might have been on a natural developmental path toward higher agreeableness and lower anxiety regardless of their location. Because the traveling students started with lower neuroticism, they might have been better equipped to handle the stress of moving, allowing them to focus on exploring their new environments.
The study also relied entirely on self-reported data. The results reflect how the students viewed themselves rather than how their friends, family, or teachers perceived them. Measuring personality through self-reflection can introduce bias, as individuals might not notice subtle changes in their own dispositions over an extended period.
Future research will need to track students before they leave for their trips to establish a more accurate baseline of their daily behaviors. Scientists can also use these findings to design psychological interventions that focus on small, manageable behavioral changes. By targeting daily actions, psychologists might help people slowly cultivate lasting improvements in their broader personalities.
The study, “Personality dynamics and trait change on the year abroad,” was authored by Ian Moore, Damian P. Birney, Akansha Singh, and Nadin Beckmann.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-a-year-abroad-shapes-student-personality/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #YearAbroad #PersonalityDevelopment #BigFive #Agreeableness #Curiosity #Openness #AnxietyReduction #DailyBehaviors #ExperienceSampling #PsychologyResearch
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DATE: August 2, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Remembering a chaotic childhood is linked to psychopathic traits, especially in men
Growing up in a chaotic environment where daily life feels unpredictable tends to be associated with specific psychopathic traits in adulthood, such as impulsivity and a lack of empathy. New research published in Personality and Individual Differences suggests that recalling a highly unstable childhood is positively linked to these traits, particularly among men. The findings provide evidence that different types of childhood adversity shape adult personality in distinct ways.
Psychopathy is a complex personality structure made up of different interacting traits rather than a single diagnosis. Psychologists often use the Triarchic Model to understand these traits, dividing psychopathy into three dimensions. The first dimension is meanness, which involves callousness, a lack of empathy, and a tendency to exploit others.
The second dimension is disinhibition, referring to poor impulse control, difficulty planning ahead, and emotional volatility. The third is boldness, which describes a person who is socially dominant, fearless, and emotionally resilient under pressure.
To understand how these traits develop, scientists often look to evolutionary biology and developmental psychology. One guiding framework is life history theory. This theory proposes that humans unconsciously adjust their behavioral strategies based on the environment they experience during their formative years. If a child grows up in a stable and safe environment, they might invest in long-term goals and cooperative relationships.
If the environment is adverse, a developing child may adopt a fast strategy focused on short-term survival and immediate rewards. Adversity is not a single, uniform experience. Environments can be unpredictable, meaning they are full of chaotic changes, erratic exposure to risks, and inconsistent caregiving. Alternatively, environments can be harsh, which involves constant physical or social strain, such as chronic poverty or a lack of basic resources.
“Previous research has often treated both childhood adversity and psychopathy as broad, unitary constructs,” said Virgil Zeigler-Hill, a distinguished professor in the Department of Psychology at Oakland University. “We wanted to distinguish between childhood harshness and unpredictability while examining three components of psychopathy: meanness, disinhibition, and boldness. This allowed us to ask which features of childhood environments were associated with which adult personality traits and whether those patterns differed between men and women.”
Distinguishing between these two types of adversity is a central focus of this research. “The findings underscore the importance of treating psychopathy as multidimensional because meanness, disinhibition, and boldness showed different patterns of association with childhood conditions,” Zeigler-Hill said. “They also illustrate why a difficult childhood should not automatically be equated with an unpredictable one. A childhood can be consistently resource-poor but stable, or materially comfortable yet highly chaotic, and those environments may have different implications for personality development.”
To explore these connections, the authors collected data from three separate groups, resulting in a combined sample of 4,873 participants. The sample included 2,919 women and 1,954 men, with ages ranging from 18 to 79 years old. This total group was made up of 557 community members from the United States, 2,765 American college students and community members, and 2,137 community volunteers from Israel. All participants were asked to complete specialized questionnaires measuring their psychological traits and early memories.
Participants filled out the Perceived Childhood Harshness and Unpredictability Scale. This survey asks individuals to rate statements about their early home life, such as whether their family was financially strained or if their daily routine was inconsistent. They also completed versions of the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure. This assessment asks people to rate how well specific statements describe them, such as whether they jump into things without thinking or if they function well in new situations.
When analyzing the data, the researchers controlled for unpredictability, harshness, and participant gender simultaneously to observe the unique contribution of each factor. They found that perceived childhood unpredictability had a moderate positive association with disinhibition. Participants who remembered highly erratic childhoods reported higher levels of impulsive and reckless behaviors.
Unpredictability also showed a small positive association with meanness. People who recalled chaotic early environments were slightly more likely to report callous and exploitative interpersonal styles.
“The association between childhood unpredictability and disinhibition was medium in magnitude, whereas its association with meanness was smaller but still meaningful,” Zeigler-Hill told PsyPost. “The gender differences were statistically reliable but small, and the associations involving harshness were generally very small after accounting for unpredictability. Our large sample allowed us to detect effects that were reliable even when their practical magnitude was limited.”
The researchers noted that the positive associations between childhood unpredictability and both meanness and disinhibition were stronger for men than for women. The authors suggest this gender difference aligns with evolutionary perspectives on reproductive strategies. In uncertain environments, men might be more prone to adopt dominance-oriented, risk-taking behaviors to secure immediate resources.
Summarizing the broader impact of these results, Zeigler-Hill added, “People who remembered their childhoods as more chaotic and unpredictable reported greater meanness and disinhibition as adults, with stronger associations among men than women. Unpredictability was more consistently associated with these traits than was harshness, suggesting that instability may matter differently from persistent hardship. However, an unpredictable childhood does not inevitably produce psychopathic traits because personality reflects many genetic, familial, and environmental influences.”
The statistical associations for childhood harshness were different than expected. Before controlling for other variables, harshness had a small positive correlation with disinhibition. Once the researchers factored in unpredictability and gender, this association vanished. It became a slightly negative relationship that was too weak to be considered a meaningful effect.
“We expected harshness to be associated with greater disinhibition, and it was positively correlated with disinhibition when considered alone,” Zeigler-Hill said. “However, that association became slightly negative after accounting for unpredictability and gender, suggesting that previously observed connections with adversity may be driven more specifically by unpredictability.”
Childhood harshness did show a unique negative association with boldness, but only for women. Women who remembered growing up in environments with severe resource scarcity tended to report lower levels of social dominance and fearlessness. The authors noted that chronically adverse environments might encourage heightened vigilance and caution rather than the reduced threat sensitivity that characterizes boldness.
“We were also surprised that harshness was associated with lower boldness primarily among women, although this small effect requires replication,” Zeigler-Hill said.
Because the data relies entirely on self-reported memories collected at a single point in time, the findings describe correlations and cannot establish cause and effect. It is also important for readers to understand that this research measures everyday variations in personality, rather than diagnosing mental health conditions.
“Because this was a cross-sectional study based on retrospective self-reports, we cannot conclude that childhood unpredictability caused psychopathic traits,” Zeigler-Hill said. “Current personality may influence how people remember their childhoods, and unmeasured factors such as genetics, parental personality, or family dysfunction could contribute to both. We also assessed psychopathic traits that exist along continua in the general population, not clinical diagnoses or whether someone is a ‘psychopath.'”
The study measured childhood harshness primarily through questions about financial strain and poverty. This focus on material deprivation might miss other forms of adversity, such as physical violence or neighborhood danger. Different types of severe conditions could communicate different threats to a developing child, leading to entirely different personality outcomes.
“Longitudinal research is needed to assess childhood environments as they occur and follow personality development over time,” Zeigler-Hill said. “Future studies should also distinguish among material deprivation, inconsistent caregiving, abuse, neighborhood danger, and other forms of adversity that may have different developmental consequences. We are particularly interested in whether parenting, attachment, and expectations about the reliability of other people help explain the association between unpredictability and psychopathic traits.”
The study, “Remembering chaos: The connections that perceived childhood unpredictability and harshness have with psychopathy,” was authored by Virgil Zeigler-Hill, Jennifer Vonk, Sky Dryer, and Avi Besser.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #RememberingChaos #UnpredictableChildhood #PsychopathyTraits #TriarchicModel #MeannessDisinhibitionBoldness #LifeHistoryTheory #ChildhoodAdversity #GenderDifferences #PsychologyResearch #PersonalityDevelopment
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Developmental Psychology Today by Robert E. Schell, Elizabeth Hall https://hokkaidomarket.net/books-info.php?item=1383 #SCIENCE #BOOKS #BOOKSHOP #HOKKAIDO #DEVELOPMENTALPSYCHOLOGY #CHILDPSYCHOLOGY #HUMANDEVELOPMENT #PERSONALITYDEVELOPMENT #bookstodon
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Personalient individuals are happier due to smoother social relations https://www.psypost.org/personalient-individuals-are-happier-due-to-smoother-social-relations/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Happiness #SocialRelations #EmotionalWellbeing #PersonalityDevelopment #LifeSatisfaction
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In the many years before I finally committed to gender transition I looked for ways to calm the anxiety I felt whenever I considered gender related issues and my identity.
https://buff.ly/3NUy9j9#LGBTQ #Transgender #Gender #PersonalityDevelopment #MentalHealth
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Daily motivation.
#motivation #inspiration #motivationalquotes #inspirationalquotes #lifequotes #success #DailyMotivation #quotes #lifequote #success #lifeimprovement #personalgrowth #mindfulness #personalitydevelopmentTo unlock your potential, visit:
https://thewisdomloom.com -
Daily motivation.
#motivation #inspiration #motivationalquotes #inspirationalquotes #lifequotes #success #DailyMotivation #quotes #lifequote #success #lifeimprovement #personalgrowth #mindfulness #personalitydevelopmentTo unlock your potential, visit:
https://thewisdomloom.com -
7 #PersonalityDevelopment Tips That Will #ChangeYourLife
1. Cultivate Self-Awareness
2. Set Clear Goals
3. Develop a Growth Mindset
4. Commitment
5. Be Sensible
6. Practice Self-Discipline
7. Adopt a Positive Attitude
https://www.msn.com/en-in/lifestyle/horoscope/7-personality-development-tips-that-will-change-your-life/ss-BB1qcKEK?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=5ccda6a5f48145e386c825204b125a2f&ei=26